Premier among these systems was the Northrop Grumman-led Industry Team's DCGS-Army Mobile Basic, which was instrumental in demonstrating how a tactical-level, forward-deployed system can access both structured and unstructured data while making multi-intelligence (multi-INT) processed data universally available and accessible.

Accessing and exposing multi-INT data is a landmark achievement due to the traditional stove-pipe arrangements in handling intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data and the long-term complexity inherent in ensuring that data from a wide variety of sources are accessible rapidly to a wide variety of users. DCGS-A Mobile Basic and its internal Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) software construct performed well in the constant receipt of data and daily query and exchange of data between the numerous systems, confirming the Army's objective to operate within a net-centric environment.

"Federating the use of multi-INT data across DCGS systems successfully demonstrates DCGS-A Mobile Basic's value in providing mission-critical ISR data to users at the tactical frontier," said Joseph J. Ensor, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman's Space and ISR Systems Division. "Its performance at Empire Challenge proves that it is a key operating element of our nation's defense."

Exercise Empire Challenge, hosted by the United States Joint Forces Command at the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, is the annual focused event for validating ISR systems with objectives centering on joint and coalition warfighter requirements.

The Northrop Grumman-led Industry Team (including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, SAIC and Overwatch Corp.) developed and operated DCGS-A Mobile Basic as the Army's emerging singular multi-INT tactical processing, analysis and exploitation system. DCGS-A Mobile Basic demonstrated how DCGS-A and other DCGS systems and configurations can interoperate using the DCGS Integration Backbone (DIB), advancing the state of ISR interoperability within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.

Throughout the exercise, DCGS-A Mobile Basic was key in ingesting, exploiting and publishing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) Full Motion Video/Moving Target Indicator data, signals intelligence (SIGINT) data, and weather data using a combination of the DIB/Network Enterprise and organic antennas. Specifically, data was acquired by DCGS-A Mobile Basic by use of its Joint Tactical Terminal (JTT) servicing the Integrated Broadcast Service and a Tactical-Very Small Aperture Terminal (T-VSAT) in receiving broadcast weather data.

Additionally, DCGS-A Mobile Basic successfully interoperated with the DCGS-A Mobile Basic-Enabled Joint STARS Common Ground Station (DE-CGS) and elements of Northrop Grumman's DCGS-Navy system at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. A derivative Army framework is inherent in a companion system called DCGS-Intelligence Community (DCGS-IC). Developed by Northrop Grumman, DCGS-IC also successfully participated in EC09, federating with systems on operational networks.